Membership cards

This week I received my new membership card for the RSPB. I have been a member since 1980 and a fellow since about 1995. It is the first time since I joined that I have thought the RSPB have lost the plot. My RSPB fellowship card has a picture of....... a Peacock butterfly.

For goodness sake, with You Forgot the Birds and the Countryside Alliance doing their best to trash the RSPB, this is a ridiculously easy own goal. I want a new card, and I want a picture of a Hen Harrier on it this year. A Red Grouse next year, Black Grouse, the year after and a Merlin the year after that.

I'm fairly sure mine has a black grouse as well, but I can't find it. Found previous years, and they included an otter and a water vole, so not unusual to not have a bird on the membership card. I agree with your point though, Simon.

Much of what the RSPB does benefits all wildlife – through the management of our nature reserves through to our advocacy and our education work. A focus on birds has enabled us to achieve great things. Increasingly however, we want to ensure that our work deliver the best possible results for nature as a whole.

Birds will remain central to what we do, but we believe that our proven conservation model can help save other habitats and species too. This means working with partners and building on our current expertise to understand priorities, needs and build capacity to save nature.

If you would prefer to have a membership card with a bird on it, please do contact our membership team on 01767 693680 and we can sort this out for you.

I contacted your membership team by e-mail the same day I posted this. Guess what? I haven't heard a thing from them. That is pretty poor - and I do not accept your rationale for shoving out membership cards with any random example of wildlife on it: you are the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

I again agree with Simon's post. What you have written, Mrs T, is perfectly fine in itself. I have no problem with reptile conservation going on at Arne, or supporting otters, bees or whatever else on other reserves. But, as part of, and in many cases as a consequence of, what is being done to protect and conserve threatened bird species. As you said, "birds will remain central to what we do". There are surely enough species to pick from when issuing membership cards? Why on earth are we then selecting common species of insects or any other non-bird to be represented on the cards? Is any member joining RSPB going to think more positively about their membership if they receive a new card with an ant on it? I would have thought most new members would expect a bird surely? Anything else would seem at the very least eccentric.